Special Awards

2012 ACT Festival “Globe Teana-Theatre Observation Award”

The “Shanghai International Contemporary Theatre Festival” (ACT Festival), hosted annually by the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, celebrates the best of contemporary theatre works from around the globe. The festival has become a vital channel through which the city of Shanghai informs Chinese and international audiences and theatre festival organizers about the latest theatre works of excellence. It also offers an invaluable platform for professional and amateur theatre participants to showcase their talent and unique voice.

The ACT Festival “Globe Teana-Theatre Observation Award” represents the joint efforts of Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre and the ITI Music Theatre Committee in acknowledging music theatre works which display brilliance in seamlessly weaving music into dramatic structures and using innovative story telling techniques on stage. The prize will be awarded for the second time.

In 2013 the following winning production was invited by ACT Festival to hold a guest performance at the festival:

The Jury

Martin Bauer

Martin Bauer, guitarist, composer and professor, is currently Director of the CEAMC Foundation ( Center of Advanced Studies in Contemporary Music) and since 1997, the Ciclo de Conciertos de Música Contemporánea del Teatro San Martin, which is considered one of the most important festivals for new music in Latin America. In the past he was Director of the Experimental Centre of the Colon Theatre in Buenos Aires, a space for new opera, music theatre and performance. Over a five-year period more than forty works, several of them by young Argentine composers, were presented with great success. Martin Bauer has composed chamber music, as well as music for ballet, theatre and film. His music has been presented in major concert halls in his country and abroad. The government of Argentina has given him several awards including the Premio a la Excelencia en la Cultura, and also from the National Arts Fund.

More recently he has gravitated toward music theatre. These works have been presented at: The Kitchen (New York), Dartington Summer Festival (UK), Podewil (Berlin), Singapore Arts Festival, Zurich Opera House, Edinburgh Festival, Pfefferberg (Berlin),Villa Romana ( Firenze) Oficina Musical (Oporto). As a stage director he was responsible for the first performance in Buenos Aires of Salvatore Sciarrino’s Infinito Nero and Vanitas as well as works by Satie, Joyce and Cage. His work The Loser, based on the novel by Thomas Bernhard, was voted the most important piece of the year by the Music Critics Association in 2004.

Martin Bauer regularly gives lectures and seminars in his country and abroad on topics such as Samuel Beckett and music, scenic music, Argentine experimental music, and John Cage in Latin America. He is currently Director of the Centro de Experimentación y Creación del Teatro Argentino de La Plata, a centre specialising in new opera and music theatre.

Brett Bailey

Brett Bailey is a South African playwright, designer, director and the Artistic Director of THIRD WORLD BUNFIGHT. He has worked in several African countries, in Haiti, the UK and Europe. His acclaimed iconoclastic productions, which interrogate the dynamics of the post-colonial world, include Big Dada, Verdi’s macbEth, iMumbo Jumbo and Orfeus. His performance installations include EXHIBITs A & B. He directed the opening show at the World Summit on Arts and Culture in Johannesburg (2009), and the opening shows at the Harare International Festival of the Arts from 2006-2011. He was curator of South Africa’s only public arts festival, ‘Infecting the City’, in Cape Town from 2008-2011, and was chair of the jury of the 2011 Prague Quadrennial. His works are presented across Europe, Australia and Africa, and have won several awards, including a gold medal for design at the Prague Quadrennial (2007).

Beth Morrsion

Beth Morrison Projects is the realisation of Beth Morrison’s (Artistic and Executive Director) deep commitment to supporting and empowering composers and artists as they create new work. The Wall Street Journal recently said about her extensive history in the development of new opera and theatre, "Ms. Morrison may be immortalized one day as a 21st-century Diaghilev, known for her ability to assemble memorable collaborations among artists... [she is] a vital link in the music-industry food chain." She previously served as Administrative Director at Boston University’s Tanglewood Institute, a programme that connects young musicians with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s world renowned Tanglewood Festival. In addition to Beth Morrison Projects, Ms. Morrison served as Producer for New York City Opera’s VOX: Contemporary American Opera Lab for the 2010-2011 seasons, as well as a three-year founding tenure with the Yale Institute for Music Theatre. Ms. Morrison is also currently the Founding Co-Artistic Director of Prototype, a contemporary opera-theatre/music-theatre festival produced with HERE Arts Center in New York City. Ms. Morrison holds a Bachelor of Music from Boston University School of Music, a Master of Music from Arizona State University School of Music, and a Master of Fine Arts in Theater Management/Producing from Yale School of Drama.

Roland Quitt

Roland Quitt is a free-lance dramaturg, author and curator from Germany working predominantly in the field of new music theatre. He studied Music, Philosophy and German at Berlin’s Freie Universität. After several years in fringe theatre as a director, actor and head of an opera ensemble, he began working as a dramaturg for various theatres. Since 1996 the main focus of his work has been the field of advanced contemporary music theatre. In the German city of Bielefeld he founded the ‘visible music’ series, which pioneered as an arena for experimentation in forms of music theatre outside opera, and which was later continued in Mannheim. He has been responsible for the conception and commissioning of several world premieres and has collaborated with many of Europe’s leading composers for new music theatre. For several years Roland has been an active member of the ITI board.

Danny Yung

Danny Yung is an experimental art pioneer, the Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Zuni Icosahedron and Chairperson of the Hong Kong Institute of Contemporary Culture. Over the past 30 years he has been deeply involved in various aspects of the arts, namely theatre, cartoon, film and video, visual arts and installations, and is widely regarded as one of the most influential artists in Hong Kong and its neighbouring regions. He is a keen advocate of experimental arts and new art forms, and has been involved in over 100 theatrical productions as director, scriptwriter, producer and stage designer. He has also contributed significantly to the provision of a platform for both acclaimed and emerging artists to explore and practise theatre art in Hong Kong, as well as across Europe, Asia and the United States and more than 30 cities, thereby winning great acclaim. In 2008, he was honoured by UNESCO’s International Theatre Institute with the Music Theatre NOW award for his Tears of Barren Hill. He also received the Merit Cross of the Order of Merit from the Federal Republic of Germany in 2009 in recognition of his contributions to the arts and cultural exchange between Germany and Hong Kong. Danny is not only active in the arts and cultural development in Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific regions, he is also dedicated to promoting international cultural exchange and arts education. He is currently an International Consultant of the UN Consultant System (UNCS) of UNESCO, Chairperson of the Asia Pacific Alliance of World Cultural Forums, Chairperson of the Hong Kong–Taipei–Shenzhen–Shanghai City-to-City Cultural Exchange Conference, Vice President of the Asia Pacific Performing Arts Network, and is on the board of the West Kowloon Cultural District Authority and the Lee Shau Kee Hong Kong School of Creativity.